options>application options won't change
I find that if I set or change the download options under options>applications to, for example, Always ask for what to do with a .avi download it always comes back with Open with VLC etc. I don't want the .avi to open with anything. I ALWAYS want to be asked where to save it. Resetting Firefox doesn't help nor does deleting mimeTypes.rdf. Using v22 Firefox. With later versions of Firefox in the last few months I am having to change a lot of settings that used to work how I wanted but now I have to hunt for ways to restore previous settings. As an example of this I thought that to change my default home page I should only have to go to Options>General but no, now you have to hunt through several places to find ALL the places that override your personal set choice. At the moment my home page is set to http://www.google etc BUT it defaults to https://www.google. I have found a fix and applied it but it has changed back again after a week or so. I DON'T want my preference (or what Mozilla thinks is my preference) to be set elsewhere OTHER than under Options>General. I am digressing from my initial question above but I suspect that the answer will be similar in that although I see a place to set my preferences under Options>Application they are being ignored and the place to change them will be somewhere else under an impossible to find option. I did have VLC plugin v2.0.6 installed but have now disabled it BUT the file choice box I am complaining about is persisting in asking me if I always want the file opened by VLC 2.0.7. I have set the .av and .mp4 Applications to always Save File or Ask but it won't stick. Where is the reference to VLC 2.0.7 coming from and why ?
All Replies (12)
You may need to reset firefox.
Please read 5th line down where I say that resetting Firefox doesn't help. Unless I need to reset it one more time than the dozen I have already tried.
can you create a new profile then transfer some from the old profile, if deleting mimetypes doesnt help, a new profile may.
New profile created and deleted old one. Copied over bookmarks and passwords from an earlier backup (passwords no longer work and bookmarks won't show in sidebar anymore - I will work on fixing these). BUT Options>Applications still won't work properly. I cannot set this to Ask and downloads keep wanting to open with VLC 2.0.7. Somewhere else there is something stuck which is stopping me from choosing my desired action. If this keeps on I will have to start using IE instead. Not because of these default actions not working but because of the difficulty in trying to change stuff which should never have stopped working in the first place.
If a new profile isnt working you may need to reinstall if you havent already, not telling you to "reboot and try again" but its a rather good idea, you could also disable the vlc plugin and any addons in FIrefox > Addons > Plugins/Addons. Thanks in advance.
Well a complete reload appears to have worked. Thanks for that. I also completely removed VLC player because that was the only place that Firefox could have picked up the latest version 2.0.7 that I had loaded. Next I will reinstall vlc and see how things go. Bookmarks now working okay and I don't mind redoing all my passwords as required. I reloaded vlc 2.0.8 but not the Mozilla plugin. And what do you know - even though I told it NOT to load the Mozilla plugin (and it isn't showing as being loaded under Plugins) I now have Open with VLC 2.0.8 showing up instead of defaulting to Save. So I am back where I started. So who is at fault - Firefox or VLC ?
Are you sure youre downloading it from http://www.videolan.org/index.html
Yes. Somehow vlc is causing FF to suddenly default to the Open with dialog instead of leaving it at Save. Either vlc is causing this or FF is picking up file associations from Windows and making assumptions on my behalf. AND I HATE THAT. Fair enough if I doubleclick on a file with a .avi extension then start playing it back with vlc (or whatever) BUT during a download I would have thought it was obvious I wished to save the file NOT play it. So where is FF picking up the file association from and how do I stop it ?
Try to disable the VLC plugin either in Firefox or on the VLC player program (VLC can be persist to handle specific file types).
You can also try to check the registry (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type) for references to this file type and possibly VLC.
Note that Firefox prefers a secure connection in some cases, especially if you have once connected to a server via a secure HTTPS connection. You would probably have to check if there is any history that uses a secure connection.
As I said above vlc is not showing as a plugin in FF. Where do you check within vlc for plugins into FF ? Vlc is set to be the default player for .avi and .mp4 and I am happy with that. And if I doubleclick a .avi or .mp4 file I am quite happy for vlc to be the default player for them. It looks to me that FF is checking the file extension on the download and then deciding all by itself that maybe I am more likely to want to PLAY the file rather than download it. In spite of the fact that I have told it, presumably in the right places, that I am more likley to want to download it and NOT play. It is interesting that I have only EVER downloaded files and HAVE NEVER played then back this way. So why can't I set FF to default to Save ?
I understand that FF might prefer using secure connections BUT when I set my home page to http://www.google.co.nz I want it to actually use that because that is what I have told it to do. I don't want FF deciding to use https://www.google.co.nz just because I might have used that once before. I have told FF to use http: and that is what I want it to do. Otherwise why even offer the option of setting your home page if FF is going to go off and decide to use something different. Has Mozilla been picking up bad practise from Microsoft ?
Your System Details List shows: VLC media player Web Plugin 2.0.6
My original post might have but since then I have removed vlc, deleted FF, reloaded FF and then reloaded vlc.
My original FF (v22.0) had vlc 2.0.6 plugin BUT vlc itself was 2.0.7. When I tried to download an .avi it wanted to Open it with 2.0.7 so was totally ignoring the 2.0.6 plugin. So FF was ignoring the plugin and was taking instructions from vlc itself.
Now that I have a fresh install of FF (v22.0) and then a fresh download/install of vlc (2.0.8) I am saying that there is NO plugin of any sort showing vlc BUT as soon as I installed vlc itself it immediately caused the Open dialog box to indicate 2.0.8. So FF appears to be ignoring plugins and is taking some sort of input directly from the program VLC.
And when I open Options>Applications vlc isn't even associated with .avi. AVI isn't even shown there so why does the Open with box come up showing VLC 2.0.8 when I download the avi ?
I think there is a whole layer of file association stuff within FF that isn't open to end user manipulation.